Police in the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangsu shot and killed two men Friday in two separate hostage incidents, police said.

A man surnamed Guo, 28, took a mother and son hostage Thursday night in the eastern city of Nanjing, Jiangsu, asking the father, surnamed Liang, at home to pay 500,000 yuan (73,000 U.S. dollars) as ransom, police said.

Liang reported the incident to the police and gave 336,000 yuan and a watch valued at 100,000 yuan to Guo near a national highway in the early hours of Friday.

The police attempted to arrest Guo after the hostages were released, but Guo tried to escape by car. The police shot him to death after Guo disregarded warning shots, police said.

In the other case, a man armed with a knife grabbed a woman at about 5 a.m. Friday after he was found breaking into a store in Shantou City of south China's Guangdong Province.

The police spent six hours negotiating with the man, who wounded the woman's neck despite persuasion and warning, police said.

At about 11:30 a.m., the suspect seemed to lose patience and became agitated. Police shot him in the head and rescued the hostage.

The man was still unidentified. Police were investigating the incident.

Several hostage-taking incidents have been reported since last year. A man who used a razor to take a female barber hostage in downtown Chongqing City was shot dead by police in January.

In November, police in southwest China's Kunming City shot and killed a knife-wielding man who injured three people and took another hostage in a Carrefour store after a four-hour standoff.

(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2009)